I’d received client-supplied print artwork in InDesign, and the Links used in the document contained all sorts of naming conventions. Including the use of special characters. So I decided to perform the big clean-up. I could have used Adobe Bridge’s Batch Rename to convert special characters to underscores etc., but that would have left InDesign displaying a ton of missing links afterwards… What Marijan’s script allowed me to do is rename the images to my liking AND retain the Links in InDesign in one hit. Nice!

Script download / install

Download link: tomaxxiLINKrename.jsx

• Download the .jsx file from the above link.

To install the script:

• Show the Scripts panel (Window menu > Utilities)
• Right click the Application folder
• From the Script panel menu choose Reveal in Finder

• Double click the Scripts folder
• Double click the Scripts Panel folder

If you wish to, create a new folder in which you want to organise your scripts (it will appear as such in the Scripts panel).

• Place the script inside the Scripts Panel folder (or a sub-folder within this folder).

The installed script will now appear in the Scripts Panel.

Using the script

Marijan’s instructions for using the script come down to:

• Select the image with the Selection tool
• Run the script
• Rename image in dialog that appears
• Click Rename

Run Script: You run the script by double clicking it in the scripts panel, or selecting Run Script from the Scripts panel menu, or applying an assigned keyboard shortcut.

Be aware: Clicking a link to an image in the Links panel, will select the Content. Unfortunately, running the [1.0] version of the script when the content is selected throws an error. You must have the Container selected. The easiest way to do that is to press the Esc-key on the keyboard.

Using the Links panel to select images

I found myself working on a document that contained quite a few images that I wanted to rename. So to ensure I didn’t miss any, I used the Links panel to navigate from image to image before executing the script.

So I first of all assigned a keyboard shortcut to the script (Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts… Product Area > Scripts ). Then used the links in the Links panel to select the images in the InDesign document on by one and ran the script to rename.

Process I used:

1. Click image link (and press ESC after that to select the Container)
2. Run script
3. Type new name and click Rename
4. tadaaaa… new name…

If you happen to enter a name that’s already used and click Rename, you’ll receive a warning telling you that a file with the intended new name already exists.

In this case you have an option to a) Relink the selected image to that particular file (Click Yes), or b) Cancel the rename action, by clicking No .

If you change your mind… and want to Cancel out of the Rename placed file dialog, press Esc.

Some small improvements I’d suggest:

• Script to work when either Container or Content is selected.
• Rename placed file dialog to have ‘Rename’ and ‘Cancel’ buttons.
• File exists dialog: change text to ‘File already exists! Relink image to existing file instead?

Batch renaming: John H. in the 4th comments below points out that there are also batch image rename scripts available for InDesign as well. The last script in the InDesign forum posts he mentions, renames all image links in InDesign based on a ‘base-name’ you enter and adds a counter suffix to that name that numbers each image. E.g. you’d end-up with artwork001.jpg, artwork002.jpg etc.

Also If anyone out there has spotted a Batch Rename script for InDesign that a) retains original names, but turns them into web-friendly names (no spaces, special chars), for instance by replacing those chars with ‘underscores’. Let me know. I’d be happy to add some extra info about that script to my blog.

Cari Jansen - Trainer, Print & E-Publishing Consultant, Technical Writer, Public Speaker

Martinho da Gloria (www.automatication.com), this week released the 1.02 update for the Mulit-Find/Change plug-in he developed for InDesign.

About this plug-in

Whether it’s to fix common formatting issues in manuscripts you import in InDesign for book and EBook publishing, such as removal of double tabs, spaces, paragraph returns, conversion of hyphens to en or em-dashes. Or to apply paragraph/character styles etc. to text that’s imported with multiple style overrides, such as a Word document import containing half a dozen style overrides for the paragraph style style ‘Normal’.  If you find yourself performing the same series of InDesign Find/Change search and replacement actions over and over again, this is a super handy plug-in to have.

The idea behind the plug-in is that you can combine saved Find/Change Queries into Find/Change sets and apply multiple Find/Change commands with a single click. You can build Query Sets for the different groups of Find/Change commands you use for various jobs and Query Sets can be shared between plug-in users.

New features

The 1.02 maintenance release is a free upgrade for current Multi-Find/Change licensees and provides a series of cool new features:

• The release adds support for InDesign CS5.5 and continues to support InDesign CS4 and CS5.
• You can now import Find/Change queries when first launching the plug-in after install.
• You can import and export InDesign’s Find/Change queries to/from any location.
• And in my opinion the coolest new feature is the ability to use this plug-in to perform a Change Case command as part of a query that’s executed from Multi-Find/Change.

The plug-in in action…

After install the plug-in is triggered from the Window menu.

For each Query that’s added to a Query Sets you can also set Query Options to apply to the result by double clicking the Query name in the Style Set. For those headings that were typed with the Caps Lock on or Shift-key held down, you could for instance use this new Multi-Find/Change feature to fix captilisation issues in the text.

In the example above I added 2 saved GREP Queries to a Query Set. Each looks for all text set with a particular paragraph style (Heading 1 or Heading 2 in this case) and the found text is returned, then converted to lowercase through the added Query Option setting  (see screenshot below for InDesign Find/Change settings used).

Note: Although I used the ‘lowercase’ option to change the headings back to lowercase, I applied a GREP style within the paragraph styles that applies an All Caps character style to the first Word character of each sentence.

The result is an automatic fix for the Capitalisation issue on the headings.

For an earlier recording I made about Multi-Find/Change please check-out the video below.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHWMw3qH-s8

Cari Jansen - Trainer, Print & E-Publishing Consultant, Technical Writer, Public Speaker

Received an email today in which the following question was asked: “Is there an InDesign add-on that you know of that a) can take static endnotes and transform them to dynamic (i.e. linked) footnotes and b) can change static endnotes to dynamic endnotes”.

InDesign has support for dynamic footnotes. This means that the application retains a connection between the footnote reference (the in-text reference) and the footnote text. InDesign, however lacks support for dynamic endnotes.

Microsoft Word into InDesign

What does this mean for publishers who are placing manuscript text set in Microsoft Word containing footnotes or endnotes into InDesign?

When we display the Import Options during Word document import (File > Place) we can import both footnotes and endnotes:

• Select the Footnotes and Endnotes check boxes
• Click OK.

Footnotes

The footnotes will import as dynamic footnotes, with the exception of footnotes that were included in tables in Word and footnotes that were included inside footnote text. Their footnote reference remains visible in the InDesign file as a static number, but the footnote text vanishes.

Regardless of how you import the styles and formatting from Word, it is a good idea to set-up a character style for the footnote reference text and a paragraph style for the footnote text. If you opt to import Styles and Formatting from Text and Tables on the fly from Word, you’ll end-up with two styles you can use immediately: a Paragraph Style called Footnote text and a Character style called Footnote reference.

Assign these two styles in InDesign’s Document Footnote Options (Type > Document Footnote Options).

Note: Although the document footnote options for an InDesign document can reset footnote numbering based on Page, Spread or Section. Each individual story will always cause a footnote numbering reset. In other words for continuous footnote numbering within a chapter (Section), you’d need to ensure all text frames within the chapter are threaded. Rorohiko has developed a nice tool for InDesign that can help you thread text frames for this purpose: http://www.rorohiko.com/wordpress/indesign-downloads/textstitch/

Endnotes

Endnotes import as static endnotes. I’d opt to import Styles and Formatting from Text and Tables on the fly from Word, as all endnote references — including those inserted in tables— will have the Endnote reference Character style applied to it. A  Paragraph Style called Endnote text is applied to the endnote text at the end of the story.

Story: a series of threaded text frames in InDesign.

Converting static endnotes to footnotes

We now get to the first part of the question. If your source Word document contains endnotes and you’d like to import those as dynamic footnotes in InDesign, the easiest things to do — in my opinion — is convert the endnotes into footnotes in the source Word document, prior to its placement into InDesign.

Keep in mind however, that there are limitations as to where footnote references are supported in InDesign. If endnotes appear in tables in Word and are converted to footnotes in Word, they will be ignored during the document import into InDesign.

I am not aware of any script that’s out there that performs this conversion from static endnotes to dynamic footnotes in InDesign. But could very well be overlooking a script. Let me know if there is a script that does this in InDesign. I’d gladly add the details to this post.

Converting static endnotes to dynamic endnotes

As to conversion of static endnotes to dynamic endnotes…  This is an easier question to this answer. Peter Kahrel developed an excellent free script for InDesign that does just that.  Ok, it doesn’t quite add a true dynamic endnote feature to InDesign, but the script builds InDesign cross-references based on the paragraph and character style information the document contains, when a paragarph style is applied to endnote text and a character style is applied to the  endnote reference. Creating cross-references means that the link between endnote reference and text does become dynamic. Which makes it a script that is very useful in the interactive PDF and EPUB arena.

Note: You might find you need to go through the endnote text at the end of a story and remove remove blank paragraph returns first  in the endnote text and reapply the endnote text paragraph style to the endnotes prior to running the script — I ran some tests with the latest version at time of writing, and encountered a small issue with an imported Word 2007 document where blank returns appeared between the endnote text paragraphs and the script thought there was a different number of endnote references to end note text.

You can read further instructions on how it to install and use the script on Peter’s web-site:

http://www.kahrel.plus.com/indesign/dynamic_endnotes.html

Additional Word to InDesign Endnote support

If what you are looking for is a solution that adds better support for Microsoft Word endnotes in InDesign, then there is a commercial plug-in available  as well: Sonar Bookends InFnote from Virginia Systems. You basically place a Word document including the Endnotes into InDesing,  then run an Import Word Endnote command and place the endnotes in a separate InDesign text frame (no longer attached to the story) and update the numbering.

You can download demo version of the script that includes the user manual from the Virginia Systems web-site:

http://www.virginiasystems.com/products_d.html#sbifnote

Cari Jansen - Trainer, Print & E-Publishing Consultant, Technical Writer, Public Speaker

This is the third in a series of articles I’m dedicating to conversion of print publications to EPUB. The first article covered handling of content order, the second looked at controlling break points in EPUBs. I was going to dedicate the third article on text-formatting, but have decided to return to the topic of graphics for this one. I’ve written a little on how Adobe InDesign CS5 handles image quality during EPUB conversion.

One of the things I’ve not yet covered is how we can handle illustrations, such as info graphics, that are partially constructed in Adobe InDesign. I spot these types of grouped illustrations in quite a few publications created in InDesign, often in books destined for the education market. The problem with these types of graphics is that both export to EPUB based on Page Layout and XML Structure  ignore the grouping of the objects. Something that David Blatner also pointed out in a recent article on XML structure vs Page Layout. Let’s take a look at what happens to this type of InDesign content during EPUB creation, and how we can fix things.

Grouped graphics

Ok, so what’s the issue with these grouped graphics and EPUB creation from InDesign? Let’s take a look.

Below is a little cartoon type illustration, consisting of an Illustrator drawing (graphic), speech bubble shapes drawn in InDesign (unassigned objects), and two overlapping text frames. All of the illustration components have been grouped together  (Object > Group)  so that the illustration can be easily moved around the page for layout purposes as a single grouped object.

Whether you turn this into an inline graphic and use Page Layout as a content order source, or work with XML structure, the outcome will be similar when we export this page to EPUB from InDesign.

InDesign handles a grouped object as if it is not grouped at all… Any unassigned objects — the speech bubbles — are ignored during EPUB export. The text and graphic frames are handled as if they are individual objects. What we end up with is an illustration that has been totally broken apart, with some components missing.

Not a pretty sight right?

Luckily there is an extremely easy way to fix this! Without having to redraw your artwork in Illustrator.

A little bit of magic = a fix…

The trick to turning this InDesign graphic into something that can still be edited in InDesign AND generates the intended appearance of the illustration in the EPUB is found in a fantastically clever plug-in that Martinho da Gloria of Automatication wrote for InDesign called Layout Zone. He has made this plug-in freely available. (Thanks you Martinho!).

Download and install this plug-in (the CS4/CS5 version). Once you’ve installed the plug-in:

• Select the group with the Selection tool.
• Choose Edit > Layout Zone > Assign Zone.

Note: At the time of writing Layout Zone does not support Inline Groups. So if you are using a Page Layout order for your EPUBs, you’ll need to unanchor the group first, then Assign the layout zone, and re-anchor it afterwards.

• The Save As dialog appears.

What Layout Zone is going to do is generate a brand new InDesign document from the selected group. So you’ll need to give your InDesign illustration a name

• Once you click Save, Layout Zone the Assign Zone Options dialog appears.

• Under Save, select Selection.
• Under Ignore, select Locked Objects (and any other Locked object types that might exist in your document).
• My graphic doesn’t need to deal with Hanging Ascenders/Descenders so I Ignore those.
• Bleed is also not an issues, so I leave the default values set to 0.
• Click OK.

Layout Zone now performs its magic… replacing your previous artwork with a link to the InDesign file it has just created.

oooh, how cool this is… Yes, I’m jumping up and down a little here!!!

If you need to edit the text in the speech bubbles or other parts of the illustration, simply choose Edit With > Adobe InDesign CS5 from the Links panel menu… this launches the illustration InDesign document you saved earlier in InDesign. Make the changes, save and close this file… and you’ll return to an updated version in the InDesign document that is going to be EPUBed (as that a word?).

All you need to do now is either turn this graphic into an inline/anchored object or assign its proper location in the Structure panel… and next time you Export to EPUB… (File > Export for > EPUB…), the result will make you much happier.

How’s that for a magical solution to the ‘how to get grouped illustrations into EPUB’-problem? I ‘heart’ it (I just can’t help myself… my ‘little geeky’-part is still jumping up and down with excitement)…

Cari Jansen - Trainer, Print & E-Publishing Consultant, Technical Writer, Public Speaker

This makes a huge difference from how we might have processed documents in the past…

Imagine this: You’re working on a longer document, let’s say an annual report. You’ve received the text in Word document format, and import this into InDesign to commence the layout process. It’s something we’ve probably all done… and following the import… we might have heard some loud comments going around the office.. “oooh my… I’ve got some cleaning up to do… “. Removing double spaces, removing double carriage returns, changing double tabs to single tabs, running through a document and ensuring certain words are spelled correctly…

InDesign’s Find/Change command would have been of some help. Others might have used the Find’Change By List Script to run through a series of Find/Changes in a ‘single’ hit. This script itself does require some knowledge on formatting the accompanying text file correctly that is used to process the multiple commands…

The Multi-Find change script is well worth the price and has been released today.

Watch the following YouTube video to have a bit more of an idea of how this plug-in works and then jump across to the Automatication web-site to get your copy of the plug-in.

Cari Jansen - Trainer, Print & E-Publishing Consultant, Technical Writer, Public Speaker

See the following tips for some AutoFit tutorials:

• one-to-many relationship
• automatic frame resizing
• round corners and text inset

Web-reference: AutoFit plug-in (2009, Typefi Systems)

Cari Jansen - Trainer, Print & E-Publishing Consultant, Technical Writer, Public Speaker

• CtrlBridge
• CrtlCrossTalk
• CrtlChanges
• CtrlPrint
• CtrlLayers

web-reference: http://www.ctrl-ps.com/products

Cari Jansen - Trainer, Print & E-Publishing Consultant, Technical Writer, Public Speaker

The following list provides an overview of the Plug-ins and Scripts reviewed during the InDesign Add-Ons session at the Creative Suite LIVE Conference – Melbourne 28-29 September 2008.

01 David Blatner’s Tips for Adobe InDesign Plug-in (Free)

Ok, in a perfect world you would launch InDesign no more than once a day, but if you really like seeing those random tips that David Blatner’s Tips for InDesign Scripts give you upon launch then you might be inclined to Quit InDesign and launch it again.

Just kidding! You can access David’s any time you want when working in InDesign, just jump to the Help Menu and select “David Blatner’s Tips”. If you want to read the tips like a book, click the two arrows at the top of the tips window.

Web Reference: Tips for Adobe InDesign Plug-in (DTP Tools)

02 Calendar Wizard Script (Free)

Setting Calendars in InDesign can be a bit of a drag really. Table Styles came to the rescue in InDesign CS3, but the population of Months, Days and Dates is still a tedious task. Scott Selberg with the help of several other scripters and InDesign gurus has developed a nice script that allows you to create Calendars of any size.

the Calendar Wizard consists of three scripts the calendarWizard, fitCalandarToFrame and realignCalendarTables. the calendarWizard creates the calendar tables, the fitCalendar frame, enables reformatting of a calendar table to an amended text frame size, and the realignCalendarTables script is a script that allows you to match overlaid tables that might form part of the calendar (such as a separate Holiday Layer with its own table, that matches the calendar), when you’ve adjusted the column or row height settings of one of the table layers the wizard created.

When running the calendarWizard script without selecting a Frame first, the wizard, will use the current [Default] document size and margins as the basis for placement and positioning of the calendar table(s) it creates.

The script contains a range of options

And when the calendar is generated a series of Styles is added to the Paragraph Styles panel. Each of these styles can be adjusted to match your design requirements. To change the font for all of the styles, start by adjusting the cal_base paragraph style. Then work away on the others you’d like to change.

Web Reference: Calendar Wizard (Scott Selberg)

03 Tetris

Ok, we’re all spending way too much time working on our InDesign documents, in order to keep your productivity going, a game of Tetris would be a welcome break.

After installing the plug-in, it is available from the Window menu.

Web Reference: Tetris (DTP Tools)

04 Layout Zone for InDesign CS3

Layout Zone is a cool collaborative tool for InDesign CS3, developed by Martinho daGloria (New Zealand). I love this tool and have dedicated an entire blog-post and podcast to it earlier this year.

Web Reference: Layout Zone (Automatication)

05 Selection to PDF for InDesign CS3

Another one of Martinho’s scripts creates PDFs from selections in InDesign.Refer to my June 14 blog-post for more informatio

Web Reference: Selection to PDF (Automatication)

06 AutoFit

Has it ever annoyed you that when you place text in a placeholder textframe in a template, the frame size doesn’t grow/shrink to make the text fit in the frame?
Or have you wondered why you’re spending so much time tweaking complex design elements in your artwork as a result of text corrections? Move lines up, background tints down etc.

The Typefi AutoFit tool allows you to visually define parent-child relationships between individual objects. When the parent object is moved or resized as a result of content fitting, for example more text would make a frame grow, the child object will reposition or resize as well. The tool works in conjunction with the AutoFit panel, with which resize instructions can be set.

On the AutoFit page on the Typefi site, there are three quicktime tutorials that show you how to use the tool in more detail.
Web Reference: http://www.typefi.com

07 Fractions

InDesign lacks a Fraction Maker command, that some of you might be familiar with from a previous application you’ve been working with.
Dan Rodney developed two very nice scripts for fraction creation. The Proper Fraction script is available Free. Rod has also developed a low cost Pro version of the script that finds all fractions in the document and corrects them automatically. With the Free Script you start by highlighting some text, then generate the fraction either by using the Proper Fraction Szie script, which behaves like that of product Q in that it reduces the fontsize and sets baseline shifts. The second script HScale-VScale is a bit better in that it utilises a combination of horizontal and vertical scaling and baseline shift. Although text resizing is still an issue, due to the baseline shift, which Rodney acknowledges in his notes for this script, he also recommends the quick fix to use after resizing text. which is utilising Find/Change to correct the baseline shift values as required.
Web Reference: Properfraction (by Dan Rodney)

See also: How do I create Fractions in InDesign?

08 Page Exporter Utility

There are still quite a few printers out there who might ask you to submit single page PDF files instead of a multiple page PDF file. Extracting pages as individual PDFs from InDesign and applying a different naming convention is a tedious task. We can extract individual pages from a PDF in Acrobat, but that still leaves the naming problem.

Scott Zanelli has shared a very nice script with the InDesign User Community on the Adobe Exchange site, that will allow you to easily create these PDFs right from InDesign.

Web Reference: Page Exporter Utility (Scott Zanelli)

Another commercial (Mac Only) application that you can use for PDF Page Export is PDF Bee by Chris Paveglio .

09 Text Exporter

Remember that phone call from your client? Can you please provide us with a text file for all of the content in that annual report? You sigh and naturally say yes, not a problem.. “how would you like that”, in RTF (great for Word users), InDesign Tagged Text (not likely they’ll ask for that) or Plain Text?
When you manage to have Rorohiko’s Kris Coppieter’s TextExporter script installed on your system, this task becomes a breeze.

Installing the script takes a good read of the Read Me file. Make sure you read this properly, as the script install alone won’t make the script work. You must also install the APID Tool Assistant. However, once installed the Script works as expected.

Web Reference: Text Exporter (Rorohiko)

10 LB Color2Gray

This utility assists with conversion of jpegs, (some) photoshop files, tiffs to greyscale, within the InDesign document. It even adds a contextual menu to InDesign.

Web Reference: Color2Gray (Rorohiko)

11 Font Catalogue (Mac Only – $10)

Chris Paveglio, wrote this really cool little application that provides you with a quick overview of the activated fonts in your system. This application was born out of frustration by Chris with font management applications that generate single page output for each font and font-style. And recently someone asked me if I knew of a good way of creating a font-catalogue.

The application builds either a Waterfall Catalogue, that takes a custom centance and displays it at different font sizes, or it can build a Single Paragraph Catalogue that again can use a custom sample of text as the basis for the catalogue.

The PDF that is generated generates bookmarks for each page, using the first font name that appears on the page.

Web Reference: Font Catalogue (Chris Paveglio)

INDD – Scripts

The Scripts panel in InDesign hides quite a few gems that many of use would use on a regular basis, if only we knew what they would do. I’ve in the past written about the Sample InDesign Scripts that were literally hidden away in the InDesign CS2 installer CDs, but with CS3, these scripts actually come pre-installed. You can access them from the Automation > Scripts Panel.

I highlighted a few of my own favourites in this list:

13 CornerEffects

For instructions of running Scripts in InDesign and a tutorial on using the Corner Effects script (which really in CS3 should now be named Corner Options script) look at a previous post I wrote.

14 SortParagraphs

If you’ve ever received text for which the paragraphs need to be sorted in alphabetical order, this script will be your savior. No more cutting and pasting required, or drag and dropping. Highlight the paragraphs that need to be sorted, and run the script.

You can use the script in combination with GREP Find/Change As I’ve demonstrated in an earlier blog-post.

15 FindChangeByList

When you are regularly performing multiple Find/Changes on text, one after the other, then, the FindChangeByList script is the one to use.

16 MakeGrid

Working on those ads that need to be broken up into a grid of graphic frames?
You might have used Edit > Step and Repeat, or the Layout > Create Guides option in the past to set up a document template that consists of a grid of graphic frames (ads,). Let’s use the MakeGrid script instead.

[added 5-Sept-2008] David Blatner writes about this script in a very recent blog-post on indesignsecrets.com

17 CropMarks

Does your printer ask you to create business cards 4-Up or 8-Up on an A4, preferably with crop marks included? And have you found yourself creating lots of guides and copying and pasting thin lines with colour “Registration” to create these crop-marks?
The CropMarks script enables automatic creation of crop or registration marks around selected object(s).

18A LabelGraphics

Think of Label Graphics as a caption creator. The script allows you to select one of the following options:

• FileName
• FilePath
• XMP Descriptor
• XMP Author

The XMP settings allow you to insert previously added metadata below the (selected) graphics).

To add XMP metadata to images, either select File > File Info in Adobe Bridge, or alternatively select File > File Info in Photoshop, Illustrator or InDesign.
There are two XMP metadata fields that are support for “captioning”, the ‘description’ field and the ‘author’ field. Where images originate from picture managements systems or from image repositories such as Reuters or AAP, often this metadata has already been entered.

18B LabelGraphicsMenu.

To add a context sensitive menu to InDesign that enables you to right-click (Ctrl-click on Mac) on a graphic, then add a label below the graphic, run the LabelGraphicsMenu script once. You’ll be prompted with a dialog that says “This script installs a new menu item “Label Graphic” on the context menu that appears when you select one or more graphics. Click the Yes button to add the menu item”. From this point forward, you can add a graphic label

Ok, so you might be left with a ton of captions for figures that have their text overset? Hmmm… wonder if there’s another script for that.

Cari Jansen - Trainer, Print & E-Publishing Consultant, Technical Writer, Public Speaker

Web-reference: Typefi AutoFit (2008, Typefi Systems)

Cari Jansen - Trainer, Print & E-Publishing Consultant, Technical Writer, Public Speaker

The following tip gives an another example of how the Free Typefi’s Autofit plug-in – downloadable from www.typefi.com can be used with InDesign.  In this tip you’ll learn how text is run into a Header-Text Frame and a Body Content Text-Frame that are threaded to eachother. As the text is formatted with Paragraph Styles, the Header and Body Content Text Frames automatically grow to fit the header text and to balance the body content across three columns.

Preparing the Paragraph Styles.

Everything starts with good preparation. This tip uses InDesign’s Next Style feature. There are three paragraph styles that will format the text. The first paragraph style “Heading” will format the header text. The second paragraph style “Body Text 1st Para” formats the first paragraph of the body text, and “Body Text” is applied to all remaining paragraphs.

Right-click the “Heading” style in the Paragraph Styles Panel and select Edit Heading… Set the Next Style for “Heading” to “Body Text 1st Para”.

Right-click the “Body Text 1st Para” style in the Paragraph Styles Panel and select Edit Body Text 1st Para… Set the Next Style for “Body Text 1st Para” to “Body Text”.

To ensure the first paragraph of the body text starts in a the Body Content Text Frame we’ve created, set Start Paragraph to “In Next Frame”.

Preparing the Text Frames

Start by drawing the Body Content Text Frame, with the Type Tool.

Access Object > Text Frame Options, and set number of columns, in my example, “3″, and if preferred also set the Vertical Justification.  I like inserting a Paragraph Spacing Limit, that ensures that additional space is inserted between paragraphs prior to it being inserted between the lines of paragraphs (which tends to look like the leading’s been increased).

Click OK to apply the settings. And insert some dummy text (not required).

I’ve inserted more text than fits in the frame I’ve created. From the Typefi AutoFit panel, select the size option Resize From Top, this ensures that as more content is added the frame will retain it’s top “Y”-coordinate (vertical top position), whilst growing downwards. I’m also setting a maximum Height “60p0″. as I want to ensure that the article text stays well within the Page Margins.

Next, draw a second Text Frame for the Header Content.

I’m inserting some dummy text again, as it makes it easier to see what’s going on.

Again, I’m setting this frame to Resize From Top (AutoFit Panel), I’m also applying a small Baseline Gap of 2p0, this ensure that the bottom of the frame extends at least 2p0 from the baseline of the last line of text in the frame.

Position the Header Text Frame at the top of the article. Overlapping the Body Content Text Frame.

Set the Text Wrap to Jump Object. A

Next thread the Header Text Frame with the Body Content Text Frame, by clicking the Out-Port of the Header Text Frame, then clicking the Body Content Text Frame.

Edit > Select All of the dummy text that was helping out until now, and delete this. You can group the two frames together (this makes it easier to move the article around on your page after content has been added).

To group the two frames, click-drag a marquee around them with the Selection Tool, then select Object > Group. We’re now ready try out the AutoFit functionality we’ve added to the two frames.

AutoFit at work

Place your text cursor in the Header Content Frame and start type-setting, or Place some text.

All of the text will sit inside the first frame, and this frame will grow to make the text fit.

Let’s format our text and see what happens next…  Edit > Select All. Right-click the Heading Paragraph style and select “Apply Heading then Next Style”.

Wow, this is cool!  The entire article runs in fully formatted. So what happens if you edit the heading?

Both Text Frames resize!!

Video Tutorial

Cari Jansen - Trainer, Print & E-Publishing Consultant, Technical Writer, Public Speaker

Web Reference: PUB2ID, Publisher to InDesign (2007, Markzware)

Cari Jansen - Trainer, Print & E-Publishing Consultant, Technical Writer, Public Speaker

tip 059: Typefi AutoFit and InDesign CS3- Rounded Corners and Text Inset

Web Reference: Typefi AutoFit (2007, Typefi Systems)

Cari Jansen - Trainer, Print & E-Publishing Consultant, Technical Writer, Public Speaker

At the InDesign Conference, a gentleman in the audience asked “when I set a text inset for Text Frame, and apply different insets for Top, Left, Right and Bottom, I loose this functionality when I apply a Corner Option to the frame, it turns to Inset”.” Is there anyway around this?” The answer is “Yes, but you’d need to apply a little trick AND use the AutoFit plug-in for InDesign that Typefi Systems has just released”. The plug-in will not cost you a cent and can be downloaded from the Typefi web-site.

The issue

The issue the gentleman at the conference described indeed occurs as soon as a Corner Option is set for a text frame.

The Text Inset under Object > Text Frame Options… changes from Left, Right, Top, Bottom to Inset. In a similar manner to the change you see in Text Wrap options for Offset as soon as the object isn’t a rectangle anymore.

The AutoFit Solution

Start by drawing a rectangle and add the required Rounded Corner Option setting. (Object > Corner Options).

Next create a Text Frame that is almost the same size (just make it a tiny bit less deep). To create the second frame in the same spot you could: Copy the current frame, Edit > Paste in Place, Change the pasted frame to text frame (Object > Content > Text), then Set Object Style to Basic TextFrame (assumes you haven’t amended this setting for your document).

Click the top middle Reference Point and make the frame a bit shorter.

Launch the Typefi AutoFit panel and select the Text Frame. Set the ‘grow’-behaviour for the frame to Resize from Top. This means that when more text is added to the frame, the top of the text frame stays in the same spot and the bottom expands.

We now select the Typefi AutoFit tool from the bottom of the InDesign Toolbox and Set a Parent Child relationship between the bottom of the Text Frame and the bottom of the underlaying Rounded Corners Frame. Click the bottom of the Text Frame, then Click the bottom of the Unassigned Frame with the Rounded corner. A Relationship line appears, and the parent-child relationship is indicated by the black-white markers. Set the Baseline Gap value for the text frame to “0″

This relationship causes the bottom frame to grow when the Text Frame grows as a result of more text input.

The great thing is that you can set your text inset on all four sides as the text frame itself doesn’t have a corner option applied to it. Pretty Cool stuff.

Cari Jansen - Trainer, Print & E-Publishing Consultant, Technical Writer, Public Speaker

Web Reference: ArtFiles (2007, Code Line Communications)

Cari Jansen - Trainer, Print & E-Publishing Consultant, Technical Writer, Public Speaker

Web Reference: MIF Filter (2006, Goldwein Research)

Cari Jansen - Trainer, Print & E-Publishing Consultant, Technical Writer, Public Speaker